Genetic damage and health in Fallujah Iraq worse than Hiroshima

Press
release

02 July 2010

Results of a population-based epidemiological study organized by Malak
Hamdan* and Chris Busby are published on 03 July 2010 in the International
Journal of Environmental Studies and Public Health (IJERPH) based in Basle,
Switzerland. They show increases in cancer, leukemia and infant mortality
and perturbations of the normal human population birth sex ratio
significantly greater than those reported for the survivors of the A-Bombs
at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

Results of a survey in Jan/Feb 2010 of 711 houses and more than 4000
individuals in Fallujah show that in the five years following the 2004
attacks by USA-led forces there has been a 4-fold increase in all cancer.
Interestingly, the spectrum of cancer is similar to that in the Hiroshima
survivors who were exposed to ionizing radiation from the bomb and uranium
in the fallout. By comparing the sample population rates to the cancer rates
in Egypt and Jordan, researchers found there has been a 38-fold increase in
leukemia (20 cases) almost a 10-fold increase in female breast cancer (12
cases) and significant increases in lymphoma and brain tumours in adults.

Based on 16 cases in the 5-year period, the 12-fold increases in childhood
cancer in those aged 0-14 were particularly marked. The cancer and leukemia
increases were all in younger people than would normally be expected. Infant
mortality was found to be 80 per 1000 births which compares with a value of
19 in Egypt, 17 in Jordan and 9.7 in Kuwait. An important result is that the
sex-ratio, which in normal populations is always 1050 boys born per 1000
girls was seriously reduced in the group born immediately after 2005, one
year after the conflict: in this group the sex ratio was 860.

Birth sex ratio is a well known indicator of genetic damage, the reduction
in boy births being due to the fact that girls have a redundant X-chromosome
and can therefore afford to lose one though genetic damage; boys do not. Sex
ratio was similarly reduced in the Hiroshima survivors children. “This is an
extraordinary and alarming result” said Dr Busby, who is visiting Professor
in the University of Ulster and Scientific Director of Green Audit, an
independent environmental research organization. He added: “To produce an
effect like this, some very major mutagenic exposure must have occurred in
2004 when the attacks happened. We need urgently to find out what the agent
was. Although many suspect Uranium, we cannot be certain without further
research and independent analysis of samples from the area.” Malak Hamdan,
who organized the project said: “ I am so glad that we have been able to
obtain proper scientific confirmation of all the anecdotal evidence of
cancer and congenital birth defects. Maybe now the international community
will wake up”.